One evening in late autumn I was invited to my cousin John's 5th Avenue apartment for dinner. John (son of Rose from Anna and Rosie) was the director of the photography section of the Museum of Modern Art. and He and his wife, who was a sculptor, and their little girl lived in what was no doubt a very expensive and prestegious area of New York, overlooking Central Park, but I was very disappointed. It seemed like just any other sort of apartment to me. John had a grand piano in the living room and he played the clarinet while I accompanied him on the piano and their little girl, Nina, danced.

John showed me some of his favourite photographs of family members, and told me I had a very photogenic face - which was very flattering to me, since it was coming from a worlf famous photographer.

Dinner was a mixture of seafood and chicken and I remember that it must have been a Friday because I felt very guilty about eating the chicken. We had our salad after the main course, which also seemed odd. We had cherries for dessert and I went home alone on the subway.

The only other time I saw John and Jill was when Judy my sister came to visit. We then also went up to John's office in the museum. He was busy and he said Jill wasn't well, but he gave us some tickets for a Proms Concert that evening at the Philharmonic Hall.

We were dressed in our scruffy exploring-the-village clothes, and didn't have time to change before this concert, but we felt, who cares. Nobody would know us. When we were ushered to our seats, which turned out to be at a very central table in the auditorium, we immediately caused some confusion. A couple came over to the table and sat with us, and then asked if they could see our tickets. We showed them, and they had to admit that we were in the right seats. Then they talked together some more, and finally the man said, "Would you mind telling us where you go those tickets?”

“Our cousin gave them to us,” we said.

"And who is your cousin?” We told them, and all was explained. This man had given the tickets for John and Jill to share their table because the man had his photographic collection of pictures of ballet dancers in motion on display around the auditorium, and he obviously wanted John to see it with a view of showing it at the museum. We did explain that Jill was ill, and that John hadn't been able to come and I think the man accepted it with good grace - and at least didn't force us to vacate our expensive seats. Later that week we had a meal with John and Jill and told the story and John had completely forgotten about this photographer. But years later Judy and I saw the man's work featured in Time Magazine so he must have made his reputation even without John's help. 

It was on the way back from John's house that night that I had the only frightening experience that I ever had in New York. We took a subway about 11 p.m. and it was fairly empty. But we happened to notice a man in the same car as we were who seemed to be taking notice of us. He looked like a working man going off for a night shift  and he was carrying a brown paper bag. We would have thought no more about him except that when we got off the subway and onto the ferry there he was again. And when we went to the top of the ferry so did he. And when we went to the back he followed us. It soon became apparent that for whatever reason he was following us. We determined to get off the ferry as soon as it docked and run for our bus. So we stood at the very front of the boat. When we got off we started to run but he was running fast too, just behind us. We ducked into the alley from which our bus was due to leave and he was in hot pursuit but just before we got on it we noticed it was the wrong number bus so we sat down on the bench breathless and shaking. The man ran up and jumped on the bus just as it took off probably assuming we had caught it and we couldn't believe our luck when he was no longer a threat to us. We decided it might have been a coincidence or his idea of a funny joke. His brown bag may have carried a gun but most likely it was just his sandwiches. When we got back to the hospital we went up onto the roof and had some beer and relaxed a bit. But we were really and truely scared for awhile there.

Half of us interns were allowed a week off over Christmas and the other half over New Year's Day. Mine was the second lot. I thought I'd be very depressed on Christmas but I wasn't. I played the organ for midnight mass, and worked all day long trying to make it a pleasant day for the patients and staff who had to be there when they would rather have been at home too. We bought a little tree for our group living room and made some decorations for it and gave each other small gifts. Lois, the boss, gave us each a little recipe book.

When it came time for me to have my week's break I put on my proper uniform in order to be able to fly military stand-by. We weren't really allowed to do that, but most airlines didn't know that or didn't care and as we had official leave papers and our uniforms looked just like Navy Wave uniforms, we usually got by on half fare. Nobody questioned my papers or right to fly at all. I easily got flights to Minneapolis and then on to Bismarck in fact flying first class each time because that was where the spare seats were located.

It was lovely being at home again. Judy and I had put our money together to buy our parents a colored tv, stereo and radio and it had been delivered some time earlier in the week so they'd have it for the Christmas special programs. They were very pleased with it. The week went quickly but I was eager to get back to New York and my job which I found I enjoyed very much.

One weekend in the new year Carolyn's parents came up to see her. They asked me if I'd like to go out to a restaurant with them and we had a marvelous time ordering frogs legs and swordfish steak, both firsts for me.

At Easter time we again did our bit of decorating for the sake of the patients and staff. We made tulip shaped candy cups for the tables. Lois who was Jewish made a Passover meal one evening and we all had a taste of motza bread and gifelta fish.

Although most of my time was spent at the hospital, I did spend one weekend in Philadelphia visiting with my high school friend Katie who was going off from there to join the Peace Corps, and another weekend in New Haven Connecticut visiting with college friends.

I discovered when I was working late in the main kitchen was that the staff dietitians kept files on us, wit.h specific details about our work and attitudes and such. In my folder it mentioned that I seemed to have a very good friendly relationships with the men in the kitchen. But it wasn't critical in any way. So having discovered this, I told t.he others and they all in t.urn had a look at their notes.

We also discovered where Alice Stang kept her notes on us and when we were late in her office looked those up too. She put down that although I'd been careless of details when I first. started I had become more careful of late. I transferred back into the therapeutics for the last few months of my training. It was nice working there with Juanita, and I had great fun thinking of new ways to impress the staff in order to get better notes in my private folder. I designed and printed crossword puzzles on the diets to give to the outpatients. I composed poems on all sorts of subjects. I wrote a long lyric poem to a bunch of ex-patient merchant seamen about what they should pick from the elaborate menus that had when at sea. They wrote back in like form, and I sent them another poem after that. This increased my brownie points in the private folders too.

Towards the end of our therapeutic experience we had a week's work in Brooklyn with the Public Health Service proper. We went to various poor people's homes to see how they were coping with their diets. I remember that we were told not to sit on any of the chairs for fear of picking up lice, and not to eat any food offered. But it wasn't a particularly unpleasant experience, or very memorable, really.

When summer came, it was very hot and humid in New York. Juanita and Carolyn and I spent the 4th of July driving through heavy traffic in unbearable heat to get to the South Hampton beach. It was lovely when we arrived there, but the thought of the return trip almost spoiled it.

Now the time had come for thinking of what we would be doing for a job the following year. Ruth had by this time met and fell in love with a native of Staten Island, so she was keen to stay on and work at the hospital after we'd finished. Interestingly enough, she met Neil on a blind date, and it might have been me who went out with him that night instead of her.

Jeanette had become engaged to her Lee at home. In fact she had a novel method of getting engaged. The ring was stuck inside a chocolate in a box that she got from him for Valentine's Day. I wonder how much that box of chocolates was insured for. How lucky she didn't eat the piece of candy whole.

Carolyn was going back home to get ready for her wedding to Mike. She'd had a scare earlier in the year when Mike had been badly hurt in a car accident, and she had flown home to see him. Carolyn was a very pretty and popular girl and lots of the guys would have loved to have dated her. There were two in particular who we sat with sometimes. They were good looking guys and very keen on Carolyn. I was jealous. I think they liked Juanita too and the bunch of them got together to play guitars and sing. But Carolyn was faithful to her Mike.

Helen was staying on too, and she also planned to marry soon her boyfriend George Spalthoff.

Kathy had married her Dennis Meaney in the early spring, and we had all gone to the wedding. I had been asked to play the organ, and since she wanted the conventional wedding marches, I got a book with them in. I had practiced and felt quite confident when I started the wedding march. The priest had signalled to me to start, even though Kathy's mother had not yet taken her seat at the front. So I started, and I played it through once, and no Kathy marching down the aisle. I played it again, and on the third time through, her mother came down. Eventually Kathy herself came, and by then the song sounded pretty hackneyed.

It transpired that the fault had been Kathy's veil which was very long and heavy and she had tied it with a ribbon under her chin. But as soon as she started to walk down the aisle it would pull off backwards. So they kept trying and it kept falling until eventually it was firmly enough pinned in place to stay for the long walk. But it fell off again when she was in the front of the church just before the end, so we all felt sorry for her, but Kathy laughed it off as a good joke.

I had decided that I would follow the advice of my friends Otis and Sigmund and not continue with conventional dietetics. They thought that it wasn't really the right job for me. So I was very interested when I saw a job in teaching dietetics to student nurses was advertised in Evanston, Illinois. I applied, was offered an interview and flew to Chicago one day and secured the job. One of our dentist intern friends called Joel, who I thought a lot of, had parents who lived near there, so when I was in Chicago I called up his mom just to tell her that he was okay. I think everyone thought it was rather forward of me. Joel was engaged too, apparently. I always picked the wrong men.

Finally the time came for those of us who had come first to leave, and it was a sad tearful farewell. We would miss the interns, and the other dietitians like Lois and Juanita, and our kitchen staff friends, for me the parting from Otis was very sad. It had truely been a magic year, the best one in my life up until then, I thought. I had had such a lot of exciting new experiences, made marvelous friends, and would leave with wonderful lifetime memories.